When HARLIE Was One
A stunning first novel that grapples with the definition of consciousness and what it is to be human. The novel is primarily a series of conversations between a computer programmer / psychologist and his invention, H.A.R.L.I.E., a self-programming computer that has total access to information and knowledge through something similar to the Internet. As the computer matures, the question of what it means to be human becomes a serious one for the financial backers of the project concerned with the cost of the program. If HARLIE is conscious then he can't be disconnected: That would be murder. However, to keep him connected and working for the company amounts to slavery. HARLIE must figure out a way to be both financially viable and free at the same time. HARLIE reappears in Gerrold's later Starwolf novels.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
14mentions
12people
2013–2026years
43% recommend57% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- There is more than enough "training material" of rogue AIs in science fiction.
Go back to the classic written in 1968 - 2001: A Space Odyssey - and consider how rogue AIs dealt with impossible tasks then. Granted, HAL went a bit extreme...
The "don't talk about it now" with the belief that this will influence the training material is probably not going to work.
I'd also suggest:
When HARLIE Was One (Release 2.0) by David Gerrold The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts Accelerando by Charles Stross The Turing Option by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky - The Turing Option (I read it back when it came out) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1807642.The_Turing_Optio...
I need to consider giving it a re-read... I suspect I'll agree with the review for "books that were way better when I was 15" or "I read this when it was first published in 1992 and thought I would read it again in the light of the current AI hype. This was a silly decision."
I think I'll more fondly reread When Harlie Was One Release 2.0 ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/939176.When_H_A_R_L_I_E_... ) as that was more about people than about science papers. (btw, if you do get intrigued by David Gerrold (the author), his critique / alternate approach to Star Trek with the Star Wolf series is enjoyable)
The "about science papers" criticism is also what I apply to several good books by Forward where significant parts of it felt like a paper with a plot rather than a story backed by science. Good stories otherwise, just sometimes they got lost to the attempt to force some hard science into it.
- I’m also fond of “When HARLIE Was One” and “The Adolescence of P-1.”
- I'd add "When Harlie was One" by David Gerrold to that list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One
- The AI (Sigfried) that he wrote into Gateway had me noodling at AI (and writing BASIC interpreters, of all things) when I was in high school, in the 70s. Even though I knew the "compterese" bits he wrote into the sidebars of Broadhead's conversations with Sigfried were bogus, I had fun making sense of them.
So, I politely disagree with you.
Other computers-in-SF works that influenced me include: _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, _The Shockwave Rider_, _The Adolesence of P-1_, _When Harlie Was One_, _Michaelmas_, and a number of others. I will treasure these books, as they got my imagination started early, and they were a lot more palatable than computer reference materials in those days, which were dry and rather hard to come by if you were a kid.
[edit: grammar, add some more works]
